Beijing: The coronavirus epidemic that has killed over 2,400 people is communist China's "largest public health emergency" since its founding, said President Xi Jinping on Sunday.
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"It has the fastest transmission, widest range of infection and has been the most difficult to prevent and control," Xi said at a meeting on curbing the epidemic.
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Xi defended the ruling Communist Party’s response as “timely and effective” in a video conference with officials in charge of anti-disease work, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.
Jinping sounded a note of caution in the face of hopes abroad that the disease that has killed more than 2,400 people since December might be under control. He said the situation is at a “critical stage” and called on officials to “resolutely curb the spread of the epidemic.”
“The current epidemic situation is still grim and complex,” Xinhua cited Xi as saying. “Prevention and control are at the most critical stage.”
The ruling party is trying to strike a difficult balance between stopping the virus and reviving China’s vast manufacturing and other industries. Most of the world's second-largest economy has been shut down since late January in the most sweeping anti-disease measures ever imposed and are only gradually reopening.
Forecasters said that China might rebound quickly if the outbreak can be controlled by the end of March. But they said that this quarter’s economic output will shrink by as much as 1% from the quarter ending in December after Beijing extended the Lunar New Year holiday to keep factories and offices closed and told the public to avoid traveling.
Concern is growing that the disease might be spreading in South Korea and other countries, instead of only affecting people who visited China and others who had close contact with them.
(With inputs from PTI)
